It's been a while since I posted any progress - work has been taking up far too much time! But this weekend I finally got the cylinder cover buttoned up with all the insulation in so the engine is now ready to install next weekend. A couple of pics here show the cover. I chose to mostly rivet it together as it made it a lot easier to assemble and then take apart for fitting as I went. I still need to complete the rest of the engine cover but am waiting until I fit the engine to the back axle as I need to get the gears meshing correctly before I know where the diff casting sits on the frame rods and that governs the casing length. Looking forward to getting the engine hanging in place. Also means I can check the pump rod dimensions before I cut any steel!

Jeff

Nice looking cylinder cover. A feature worth working into your cylinder cover would be to be able to drop your lower cylinder cover half while the engine is still in the car. The easier, the better.
This feature is necessary for slide valve adjustments, tightening up on head gaskets and tightening up the steam chest cover.

Beautiful work Jeff
Rolly

I guess this might be considered heresy to the antique guys,but you hit on one of the very reasons I chose a mercedes 240D for a donor vehicle instead of a Stanley.
Thru combined cycle I was hoping in time to be showing you guys a steamcar that will
put a Doble to shame.I am running a APU gasturbine exhaust for the "burner" and then
another gasturbine(recirulating the steam with steamtrap stripping about 10-15% of waste with each pass).

Jay seems to be awesome on some of the work he has done on his steam collection.
The airflow seems as complex as you have thru turbines/jets...

After I had straightened up a few potato horns, I found a couple more of them hanging in my shop. Now I have five of them to choose from. A couple of them are dated January 1909. Which horn would be the most correct for our 1909 Stanley Model R? See the attached photo.

Three of them seem to match, and it's interesting to see that they have holes mostly on one side of the potato - obviously meant to be mounted with that side forward. The other 2 seem kind of omni-directional. Use one of the matching 3! Then you can retain your display of the complete evolution of the potato horn.

Kelly, of the three that look like they match, one of them has smaller holes and a January 1909 patent date on the side of the horn. Of the two other matching, one of them has a January 1909 patent date on the mounting bracket, where the other doesn't. The roughest one of the two has a little larger holes than it's lookalike. The ones with the potato ball that only has holes on the one half, the holes are facing down as to not capture any water. When in use, at first glance, it looks like the horn front is capped off with a shiny solid brass ball. I think that I might use the one with the patent day on the side of the horn. It also has the smallest holes on the lower half of the brass potato.

Makes sense.

Getting our Model 607 ready for the season - steam enema installed, hood insulation fitted, now working on installing on running board new pilot tank collected from the Goolds on Friday, to replace failed orignal tank inset into the main fuel tank. Still have to add more insulation to the smoke hood.

[flic.kr]

[flic.kr]

Over the last couple of weeks I've gotten my engine installed and the covers all on. Getting the engine in was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be as there is very little clearance to get the engine past the drive gear on the back axle. Mind you I probably went about it the wrong way. I was very relieved to be able to turn the back wheels and not have any part of the engine scrape on the covers as it isn't easy trying to figure out where the cut outs needed to be. Couple of pics attached.

Jeff

Beautiful work Jeff. Every bit of it. If you are running a "wet engine", it will be interesting to see how well your two piece copper crankcase cover with the brass end bands will hold its oil. If it doesn't work out, it is something that can always be upgraded in the future to a one piece oil tight crankcase cover. I am impressed just how well the one piece crank case cover is usually oil tight. To make a one piece crank case cover, it is real handy to have an original cover to copy from. I have found that restoring a Stanley is as much fun as driving one and that is amazingly a lot of fun. A dry Stanley engine has to be hand lubricated often.

Thanks Pat. All the joints are sealed with oil resistant gasket sealer which squished out in all directions when I did the brass bands up so am hopeful it wont leak oil. You are right about the fun of building although have to admit there is a lot of frustration as well!

Jeff

This winter I saw a friend installing a new boiler in his model 70 and he was piping up his whistle, he had one of those multi chime whistle but the valve was only rated 250 PSI and he had to fabricate a long arm to pull it.
I got to thinking about using a standard Stanley valve body to make a whistle valve
The drawing attached does not reflect the way I finely finished it, I used a 5/16 SS ball with a spring behind it but over all either way will work. It may need an O-ring and gland nut depending where I mount it. It will pass all the steam that will pass through a 5/16 copper tube. It blows a two-inch whistle just fine with little pressure on the valve seat.
I had new castings so I made the outlet side a tube end and the inlet side 1/8 pipe if I decided to mount it hard to the boiler or a bracket.
Rolly



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2014 10:11PM by Rolly.

Happy Easter Sunday. Nice work Rolly. This winter I also had steam whistle work to be done on our 1914 Stanley Roadster My 6 chime Atkinson steam whistle is a steam hog and my 5/16" steam line didn't have a large enough volume to properly blow it. I re-plumbed my steam supply line from the boiler up to a 3/8" diameter copper tubing. I still used my same 250 pound steam whistle valve that I have been using for the last 30 years. The Atkinson whistle sounds proper now. I never have had any problems with the 250 pound whistle valve. I run my boiler pressure at 400 to 450 pounds most of the time. I know of guys that run their 10 hp Stanley cars at 550 pounds and that scares me. The 10 hp engines are much too light duty for 550 pounds of steam. At those higher pressures, the throttle is much harder to get open. When you get a boiler pressure over 600 pounds, I have seen guys bend their throttle linkage just trying to get their throttle off of closed. Our two 30 hp Stanley cars really like the higher steam pressures. I run them at about 550 pounds all of the time and they really scoot well at that steam pressure.

Been touring with the Skagit Snohomish HCCA club with our 1914 Stanley 606 roadster. Running excellent and should be ready for the 2014 Modoc, CA tour in June.

Finally got the burner I have been working on together and more or less ready to put onto the car. Most of it came from Alan Kelso, the brass face came from Bob Ullrich, and the stainless liner came from Vintage Steam Products. Now have to see if it fits and works!

I think you should consider rebuilding your vaporizing coil. Looks to me like you will have major problems pulling your cable. I like 4130 for material sized for ¼ IPS keeping it at least two inches or more off the burner where the cable is and only dropping down to the hotdog as needed.
Rolly

Dear Eric, Rolly has the best design for the main fuel vaporizer. The only way that your vaporizer will work with a cable is to use a shorter cable that doesn't have to make that sharp corner. The serious carbon build up happens in the last foot of your fuel vaporizer.Your burner also could use a re-igniter over the pilot light. The re-igniter is 3/16" round stock stainless that is brazed into the front of your your Maxwell pilot.

Looks like a good idea, will have to try vaporizer #2. I had to have it down closer to the grate to allow room for the superheater that hangs down a bit far from the boiler bottom.

Eric
I make up a separate ring that holes and supports the superheater and has the notches for the elbows coming of the bottom of the boiler. This ring has it’s own hangers.
It has a lip on the bottom of the ring that the burner fits into. There are no notches in the top edge of burner.
The burner can be dropped and replaced without repacking around fitting.
You do not want the vaporizer to be two low near the blue flame of the burner. The tip of the blue flame of the burner can be 2400F much two hot for the vaporizer. You only want the radiant heat of the burner on the vaporizer. Kerosene vaporizes around 450 F

Rolly

Thanks Rolly,
I had it set up that way before, with a seperate ring, when I had my 21" Empire burner. I removed the distance ring because the inner lining was warped and covered some of the outter ring of fire tubes. I now have some left over stainless lining, so will refurbish the ring and refit it for the new burner. Also have to make a few new burner hanger rods, as some of the ones I was using are now a bit too short. I should be able to get the vaporizer a bit further off the grate over most of its length. My superheater is coiled, so hangs down about 3" below the base of the boiler.

I’m contemplating a project that requires a tight 180 degree bend in ¼. inch and 3/16 inch copper tube. The wall thickness is 0.049 the inside radius of the bend is 0.2125 or 0.425 between inside legs.
I lost 0.020 in diameter at the center of bend. I have not tried filling the tube as yet. If I can bind some Bismuth cheep I may try it.
Rolly

Just a quick update, I ordered some 4130 tubing for a new vaporizer that I will bend with a more gentle curve, starting out a bit higher above the burner plate. As I had already fitted the new burner up to the boiler before my last post, I thought I would fire up the car with the other vaporizer as fitted. The new Maxwell pilot lit well and burned clean on 15-20 psi, after warming things up for 30 minites (other chores to attend to) I fired up using the main fuel. Because of the tight bend I could not put in a lot of cable (only about 3 ft), but it really fired up nicely, a bit wet to start out with, but drying out as soon as steam begain to show in the drip valve at the engine. I had it in steam for about 3 hours, never had the pilot go out, always relit well. Using #60 sized jets and #1 Stove oil, just a bit of a low howl when relighting. Will see if cabon fouling becomes an issue, but things look pretty clean so far.
All in all about the easiest and quickest firing up I have ever had with the car.

Dear Eric, Sounds like your burners is a success. Good to hear that your stove oil is working good too. Today, I just finished a three day Canadian tour with our 1914 Stanley 606. I pressurize my Stanley's pilot fuel tank from an air regulator off of an air supply tank, similar to a condensing car's system. My regulator went tits up on the first day and I ran with only 2 to 3 pounds of air pressure to my Maxwell pilot for the whole day. The Maxwell pilot ran flawlessly down to as low as 2 PSI. Who would have though that a pilot could run at all with such a low pilot fuel pressure? We are leaving in the morning to the four day Modoc one and two cylinder tour in Alturas, Ca. Now that the 606 is all sorted out, it should be a most enjoyable tour.

I have had a week off, so thought this was the perfect time to get my wheels tightened up before the Island Navagator tour this September. The last time I had the car out all the wood artilery wheels were making a lot of noise. They are in good shape, just have dried out. The car spent all its early like in the east and south, where humidity is a bit higher. I had the car stores in my basement for a number of years where the humidity is also a bit high. Now that it has been in a Museum setting for a few years the wheels have really shrunk up. I am using Butuar B-98 to swell the wood. I used this before on one wheel (about 3 years ago) with some limited success. I say limited because I now have to do it again, perhaps because the wood has continued to shrink?
I also need do reline my brakes (have ordered GGA lining), and do some work on my rear axle to keep the brake drums from rubbing on the backing plates.
To this end, does anyone have an exploded diagram showing a 735 rear end assembly?

Eric
I’m not sure if this ie what your looking for or not, it’s what I have.
Rolly

Eric, Make sure that part 25C is not bottomed out or the hub will not tighten down on the spokes. Best idea is to soak the wheels again in your B 98 solution because just tightening up just on the hubs is not the full solution to your loose wheel problems. I built up the four wheels on our MT. Wagon from several different 100 year old Firestone wheels and I am still having good success ten years later. I used a brake lining epoxy around the spokes before putting my hubs back together on the spokes. There was a lot more to it than just that, like truing up the hub face areas before reassembling. I have nothing to say but good things about the new Kevlar GGA brake lining!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2014 05:06AM by SSsssteamer.

Thanks Pat and Rolly, this should help! The wheels seem to be coming together well. Had to replace a couple of the keepers/tabs that help hold and align the felloes with the iron "tire". On one front wheel the alignment was off by almost 1/2" in one spot, it was loose enough that I could pound it back into alignment with a rubber mallet. Feeling pretty tight now that the spokes have swelled back up. Everyone must be ordering the GGA, as The Rowland Company was out of stock and had to order more from the factory.

Kevlar GGA also known as Green Gripper. This stuff is a fantastic material.
Its drawback is it almost never wears out. It wares your drums out. I don’t believe it should be used on antique car unless you have a stockpile of drums. Casting and machining drums is much more expensive then replacing brake lining.
My suppler All Frictions Co Portland Ct. is a distributor of Redco Friction products
Raddaway MFG Co Newark NJ the president of the Co has many antique cars. He recommends a softer material Redco non asbestos Flexible molded R-4311 material.
That is unless you have a supply of drums or you don’t use the car very much.
Rolly

Thank you for the words of caution Rolly. We drive our Stanleys a lot more as compared to other Stanley owners. We hardly drive them at all as compared to driving our modern cars though. My original 100 year old steel drums on our 606 roadster still had a lot of life left in them when I replaced them with my new cast iron drums. And that is with another 45,000 miles that we had put on the drums in the last 30 years. We changed the drums out from steel to cast iron for the sake of better stopping and better conduction of heat. In the past year of running the GGA lining, I have not noticed any drum wear yet, and yes, I did have the drums off to see how they were surviving. The biggest difference that I have noticed is that our 1914 Stanley, which we always keep up with the modern traffic, it can now stop safely where it couldn't before. If my drums soon wear out, which I don't think that there is a problem of that, then I will just have to replace the drums. I am more concerned with stopping safely than with the cost of replacing brake parts. Where I am concerned with a replacement cost is with my 33 X 4 Goodrich WW tires. They cost me $335 each plus freight. That works out to about $1,600 per set of tires. I only get between 6,000 to 8,000 miles out of each set of tires. Now that cost is a big concern. We need to find a lower price for our tires. Also, the cost of a new boiler is over $5,000. That is another cost of our Stanleys that is a high cost of driving. So far I have been getting about 30,000 miles our of each boiler. I guess that I should be happy that I don't own a large pleasure boat. Large pleasure boats are a bigger money pit yet.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2014 03:32PM by SSsssteamer.

Dear Pat
You and I are fortunate we do our own work and make our own parts.
Many do not.
A few weeks ago I had to hydro a man’s safety valve, he had no idea how to.
Several weeks ago I spent the day teaching a guy how to roll tubes in the boiler, he scorched the boiler for the second time. I had him buy all his own tools and supplies. A new tube roller, hydro pump, lube oil for the roller, paper towels, battery powered drill with an adjustable clutch and a tube cleaning kit, and some white marking pens. Almost $1000. He spent the whole day and did not get half the boiler done. He now knows the cost of the mistake and I’m sure he will learn where low water is and to shut off the burner.
To make a pattern for a large brake drum can take three days. 24 hr labor and $250 for material. A loose casting only cost around $145.00 one off. 12 hours set up and machining time depending if there are bearings in the hub. But at $75 per hour that’s $2195 for a one off custom drum.
I leave it to whom ever as to what material they want to use for break lining.
Rolly

Thanks again Pat and Rolly.
I looked up the figures for the R-4311, and the figures for friction coefficent and temperature seem comparable between the R-4311 and GGA. I have already ordered the GGA, and hope that it works well for me. I don't put near as many miles on my car as Pat does, and hope that brake drum wear does not become an issue. I will keep a close eye on it just to make sure. Even though I do not put many miles on the car in a typical year, and generally drive fairly slow and steady, I do like to stop when I push on the brake. I relined my brakes a couple of years ago with High-Strength brake lining from McMaster-Carr. It worked well for most purposes, and was real improvement over what I had been using. My problem with it was that on a long winding steep downhill run the brakes completely faded away! Not an event that I would like to repeat. Perhaps part of the issue was driver inexperience (I waited until there were no brakes before resorting to using reverse) but, I would like a lining that is less suseptable to fade.
On another issue, after looking at my rear axle assembly it would appear that I need to do some adjustments. Right now when the wheels and brake drums are in place the back edge of the drums rub on the brake backing plate. The tapered brake drum plate (25-E on the drawing) does not come into firm contact with the bearing holder (don't know if that is the right word for this part, 17-A) as I would think it would need to do in order to have the wheel/vehicle weight supported on the bearing and not the axle. It looks to me like 17-A has to move outboard about 1/8 to 1/4" of an inch to fully engage the wheel and keep the drum from rubbing. Is this and adjustment that is possible? I backed off on the lock ring (17-B) and could not easily move 17-A outward, and even if I could it would slip right back as soon as I put the wheel up.
Thanks,
Eric

There isn't any adjustment for 17A (rear axle outside cone sleeve). The SKF nut that keeps 17A tight on the axle, has to be kept tight to keep 17A pulled up tight agaist it axle's shoulder. No adjustment there. When you pull up on your axle nut, 17A, hubs, bearings and all get tightened up against the axle shoulder. On adjusting 17A you have two options. First is to make a shim that fits over the cone and with it thick enough that it will give your backing plate clearance. The second option is to make a new 17A with the improved measurements. I have done it both ways. If the outside axle nut ever gets loose, 17A and its mating wheel hub surface will get galled out and ugly damage will result.

To make a shim for 17A, wrap 17A with paper and trim the paper to the shape that the shim will fit the 17A taper best. Take an old Coleman fuel can and transfer the pattern to the can and cut out your new shim. Chances that the cone will only need one shim to give you the proper backing plate to drum clearance.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/2014 05:56AM by SSsssteamer.

I thought that I would mention that I have reproduced this whole rear axle assembly by buying the new replacement bearings and then reverse engineering it. I put the new axle assembly under our 1911 Stanley model 85 7 passenger touring.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/2014 06:06AM by SSsssteamer.

Thanks Pat,
I might have to go the shim route, as my fabrication skills are not very well developed. Both 17-As were pretty well galled when I got the car, that might be a reason for the poor fit.

On a related discussion about axle shafts. Our 1916 Stanley Mt. Wagon broke an axle shaft this last September while we were on the Yellowstone tour and it did other damage when it broke. It has been a long road getting it back together as everything else was well worn out too. I drove the Mt. Wagon around the neighborhood this afternoon and it behaved perfectly. The square driven hubs were replaced by square collets in the hubs by the previous owner and they have been a pain ever since. While in Yellowstone on tour, the Mt. Wagon's axle broke because the square collet had pulled up tight on the square axle before the inner tapered hub had pulled up tight on the 17A bearing carrier cone. This problem I was not aware of until the axle broke. The outboard collet was carrying all of the weight and bending the axle as I drove along. I redesigned the square drive collet so that it shouldn't pull up tight any more but be just a good fit. It is good to have the model 826 back on the road again.